


One, one, one.

by withoutwords



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: A love Story, Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Only It's not Publicly Established, angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:29:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3371291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronon finds the number tucked under the curve of Sheppard’s bicep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One, one, one.

**Author's Note:**

> "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity." - Henry Van Dyke.

_111._

Ronon finds the number tucked under the curve of Sheppard’s bicep, the right one, the one he has flung over his face while Ronon works him apart. It would rest against his ribcage normally, out of sight, and Sheppard can’t say for sure how long it might have been there. The last few times they’d been together they hadn’t made time to take off their clothes, and it’s not in any place Sheppard would see it on his own.

“It’s permanent,” Keller confirms, though Sheppard had pretty much done that himself trying to scrub it off until his skin bled. Some time after midnight the number had changed to _110_ and Ronon had to hold Sheppard down while he panicked. 

“Thanks, Doc,” Sheppard says sarcastically, his legs dangling off the bed and his elbows resting on his knees. He’s thumbing at the number, absent minded, and last night’s sleeplessness is wearing on his face. “Anything else you can offer? Something _helpful_?”

“Oh,” the doctor is stricken and Ronon almost feels sorry for her. “Well, we tried to take samples of the ink but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have any, well … _any_ properties at all. Everything has come back negative. With the exception of your own DNA of course.”

“You mean my body just created it? All on its own?”

“Well, yes. The same way you get a freckle or a sun spot, it just … _is_.”

“That’s stupid,” Ronon says, and Sheppard throws him a look as if he’s thinking, _that’s what I was gonna say_. “It changed overnight.”

“Right. Which _is_ strange, a lot of skin mutations tend to change at a much slower rate. The fact that it’s counting down is also a concern. I take it Rodney is looking into it?”

Sheppard huffs, and then again, and he hides his face in his hand while Ronon clasps fingers around his knee. 

It’s the quiet threats that worry John the most.

 

_92._

They take photos and skin grafts and blood. The number – sort of like a tattoo, but an old, faded one that was done with a rusty needle – doesn’t move. It doesn’t change in any way except for its value and it makes Ronon’s skin itch. Itch and burn and yell, a frustrated roar that he only surrenders to when Sheppard isn’t around.

Sheppard’s not around much.

No-one’s said it out loud but Ronon can see the crazy thoughts in his eyes, the, _I’m going to die and my body is warning me_ thoughts that Ronon admits he’s had too. If he’s learnt anything since joining this world, this team, it’s that nothing is coincidental, or unimportant. Everything means something.

Ford’s demise and Weir’s sacrifice and Carter’s resolve and Sheppard’s – _John’s_ – stuttering breath when Ronon took Sheppard’s cut up fingers in his mouth that first time. They were like the winding grid of Ronon’s tattoo, every little piece joining the next.

This number was a thread, and it frayed each day while Sheppard started losing his grip.

“Where were you?” Ronon asks into the dark when Sheppard comes back from yet another solo mission.

“PX3-241,” John says in a distant way, peeling the blanket off Ronon and burying his face low on Ronon’s belly. “Maybe I’m a planet,” he says quietly, while Ronon plays at his hair. “I’m just another planet orbiting a sun, maybe you’re my sun.”

“You’re drunk,” Ronon points out, and soon John has his mouth on Ronon’s dick, and soon they’re not talking.

 

_75._

McKay, to his credit, never stops working. Carter has commandeered a whole room for his research, each wall and every inch of space covered in paper and whiteboards and markings. An endless catalogue of names and numbers and words that look foreign to Ronon even though he’s pretty sure it’s in English. At one point McKay’s sister is there, which just makes Ronon feel worse.

“You’ve actually managed to make my coffee exactly the way I like it,” McKay tells Ronon, stunned, when he brings him yet another mug. “I mean, it’s just –there is a science involved when _I_ do it but I bet you just fumble around and hope for the best. Why don’t you stay _here_ and fumble around? You can’t have any worse luck than me at this point.”

“I’ll pass.”

McKay looks at his coffee as if maybe the answers are in there. “Have you seen him today?”

He had, at 12:01, when the number had ticked over. Ronon’d pressed his mouth to it, and thrust a little deeper into Sheppard, and said, “John,” over and over. 

Sheppard had left without saying anything, had left nothing behind but his scent in the air.

“No,” Ronon tells McKay. “Did he tell you where he was going?”

“Whenever I ask he always tells me he’s off to see the wizard.” At Ronon’s confused look, McKay rolls his hands in a _sorry, sorry_ gesture. “It’s an Earth thing – a movie. _The Wizard of Oz_. A girl gets trapped in an alternate universe and she goes to find the wizard because she thinks he’s the only one who can send her home.”

“What happens?” Ronon asks, without really knowing why.

McKay huffs. “She believes in herself, and believes she can go. So she does.”

 

_53._

Sheppard comes back from an uninhabited planet dripping blood, a large square of skin peeled off the muscle. He has one of Ronon’s t-shirts to staunch the flow and he’s pale. He’s not looking at Ronon while Ronon yells at him.

“ – idiot, you could have asked me, I would have done it for you.”

“ _Ronon_ ,” Teyla says, like she’s mothering, and what. What did they want him to do, peel away his own skin and write it in blood?

“You would’ve,” Sheppard admits, moving his hand and Ronon’s shirt away while Keller inspects the damage. She hisses but doesn’t speak. “But you would’ve given me that look, too.”

“Which one?”

“The, _I don’t know why we’re doing this it’s not going to work_ , look.”

Ronon folds his arms. “I give you that look a lot, do I?”

“Oh, yeah. When I say I’m going to convince Rodney to let me press the buttons.” Ronon hears Teyla’s little laugh. “Or I team up with the Wraith. Or I tell you to try the food I brought back from Earth ‘cause I think you’ll really like it. _That_ look.”

“You talk a lot for a man dripping blood on his shoes.”

“And my floor,” Keller interjects.

“Perhaps we should …” Teyla says softly, making for the door, and she shares a glance with Ronon that Ronon doesn’t understand. 

“Go,” Sheppard orders, and it pulls on Ronon’s jaw like wire, forcing it shut. It’s the way Sheppard’s fingers are balled in his shirt, the way his body shudders, that quiets Ronon. “I’ll catch up with you all later.”

Later, the number comes back as clear as it ever was. _45_ , buried in stitches.

 

_31._

Sheppard used to lie with a lot of women. Ronon believes that, _used to_ , because any other truth would probably make him jealous. Ronon hates jealousy, hates seeing it and feeling it and wasting time with it; he hasn’t been jealous since Marlena died, since he’d done nothing but wish she was back with him so he could share her with this galaxy and the next.

Sheppard gets jealous. Women’s lingering looks and the soldiers’ appreciative nods and one night it got so stupid Ronon had to push him against a wall and admit,

“You’re the third person I’ve slept with,” baring his teeth. “Ever.”

Sheppard had trouble accepting, or understanding, and maybe _lust_ was a common flaw their God gave to them but Ronon was never wired like that. Ronon gave his flesh only to those he would give everything else.

“What we have is weak at best,” McKay explains as he, Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon share a quiet table in the mess hall. “Maybe it’s an Ancient device linked to ascension. Except instead of getting impossibly brilliant like myself, you have a countdown, a set date to help you prepare.”

“Perhaps your life will be altered irrevocably,” Teyla suggests, and Sheppard says,

“Or maybe I’m gonna die.”

It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, and he says it so offhand, so easy, that Ronon growls, pushing the table and walking away. He spars with the heavy bag until he can’t lift his arms and curls into bed without having a shower. When Sheppard joins him hours after, he says,

“30 days has September, April, June and November,” and he wraps himself around Ronon from behind, kissing the back of his neck so gently it’s like he’s not even there. 

 

_16._

Ronon stops asking questions. Whose blood is that and what’s that smell and who do you think you are? What do you think this is? Sheppard has stopped leaving, stopped going to the lab or to Rodney’s Research Room or the gym or the mess hall. He’s just stopped, buried in Ronon’s bed, or his blankets, or just buried in Ronon, with his head back and his neck bared and all these silly promises on his lips, like prayers.

“Fuck, Ronon, please,” he says, gripping Ronon’s waist with his sharp nails, his hips and the flesh of his thighs, anything he can reach, “Please, please, please.”

Ronon wants to ask him what he wants Ronon to do, because he will, but he figures this is what he can do. Be right here, clenched around him, pulsing out every last little promise.

“We’re going to shower,” Ronon says when they’re done, kissing Sheppard’s chest then slapping the same spot. “Then we’re going to have a drink with Teyla and Rodney.”

“What are we drinking to?”

“It’s just a drink.”

“Sure.”

“Then you’re going to go see Lorne about the puddle jumper with the wonky thrusters,” Ronon goes on, “Then report to Carter about that planet Zelenka wanted to check out, and - ”

Sheppard pulls Ronon down for a kiss, short, lingering, their foreheads touching like the way Teyla does sometimes. “Okay, let’s – okay.”

 

_4._

Sheppard is still, at four. They play an Athosian game in Teyla’s quarters with Sheppard’s head in Ronon’s lap and McKay trying to compare this game to something called Bridge.

They’re a great team, Ronon knows, and they’ve come a long way. Sheppard’s brought them such a long way.

“You’re Mr. Fantastic, right?” Ronon says, and Sheppard laughs, tilts his head up and lets Ronon kiss him in front of their friends.

 

_1._

Keller’s persistent and wants him in the infirmary. McKay’s desperate and wants him at the lab. Teyla’s clouded and wants to hold him while he waits.

Ronon’s nothing and wants to carve a number into his chest.

“What number would it be?” Sheppard – John – asks when Ronon admits it. They’re in John’s quarters, hunched against the headboard with their knees tucked up. John said it felt like taking cover.

“7.”

“All those years you were running?”

Ronon gives a sharp little shake of his head, playing with John’s fingers. “The years between saying goodbye to Marlena and saying hello to you.”

John clears his throat, and bites at his lips, and says, “You like me that much?” as if it’s a secret. Ronon would say, _I will, with time, with more time we could be_ close enough, but John might not have time. They might not have time, and all of Ronon’s time was borrowed anyway.

“I like you so much.”

John nods, quick, like he knows, he knows it all. Rodney, Teyla, half of the people in this city and _Ronon_ – they love him. He is loved. “I – yeah. Me too. I mean – damn it. I like you a lot.”

“You like me the best?” Ronon asks, and he’s smirking, and he’s putting John’s fingers in his mouth like that first time.

_“What are you doing?” John asks with a shaky voice, curling his fingers against Ronon’s tongue._

_“Just cleaning them off,” Ronon says, breath cool against the slick of them, John letting off little gasps. Ronon presses his mouth to them, then presses them to John’s mouth, and then they’re kissing somehow in some impossible way that Ronon hadn’t let himself believe could be true._

_“How many?” John asks, holding up his index, “You know in case you have concussion and don’t realise that you just kissed me.”_

_“One,” Ronon says, kissing it, “One, one,”_

“I like you in the best way,” John admits, and the number is pressed against his ribs and near his heart when the new day rolls in.

_0._


End file.
